Friday, June 22, 2007

LEADERS ON WHEELS

Now we have an even playing field. Anyone with internet access may now enter the business world. Millions of opportunity seekers join the race every day. Many fail, some succeed, others try and fail and try again until they make it. It is fun, challenging, frustrating, exciting, taxing, time-consuming, and often expensive; though most of us are hopeful we can make millions without spending a dime!

Realistically, we can make millions without spending much, but we need to be smart about where we do spend: not only our money but our time as well. If you are in this business by yourself, my first suggestion is to collaborate with someone via joint venture, mastermind, networks, and the like. This report is about leveraging your time and efforts with others on your team. One person trying to carry the whole load is never plausible and soon exhausts himself. Two or more gathered together may accomplish exponentially more than they could apart, providing the team is using leverage.

One leader or ten, the tools are the same:

Support each other while keeping yourself in the growth modeCommunicate with your team on a regular basis:

what you learn

what you do

what you want

how you can contribute

Most importantly, listen.

Even if you think you know everything there is to know, you do not know what is on the minds of your teammates. They benefit from sounding off to you, you benefit from their growth. If you are a strong leader, you will know when to let some of the control go.

Ducks in a Row

When I was small, my Grandmother had, among other kid-sized treasures in her ancient toy basket, a wooden ducky on a string with her ducklings wobbling behind and making a quacking noise as they went. Each duckling sat on two wheels, with a link between one and the next. I remember specifically trying to get it to move without making the noise, and experimenting by pushing rather than pulling, or just rolling one of the wheels, but inevitably, the result was always the same. They all moved. They still quacked. I tried rolling it uphill and downhill and under things and over things. I ran with it to make it go fast. I crept up on it and barely nudged it. It worked, no matter what maneuver I used. Whenever one duck quacked and rolled, they all did. Participating in a synchronized team produces solid, duplicable results. Roll the back wheel and all ducks move. Mama duck, incidentally, did no more or less work than any other part of the toy. A well trained team need not depend on its leader to perform. Perfectly synchronized, all the baby ducks and Mama duck got to where they were going at the exact same time, every time, without fail.

Cutting Corners

One exception to the success of the duck toy was when I tried to turn it around sharp corners. To get it around a corner and make it still work, much more maneuvering was required. We grow faster and more efficiently when moving forward, or taking careful curves, rather than trying to make everybody move in a completely different direction. If you have built a list, your readers are in a way part of your team. They likely have grown to respect you for the information you provide, and expect you to continue forward with more valuable information. If you turn sharply in a different direction and try to sell them on super widgets when before you were building trust based on how to be a safe driver, it is likely you will need to guide them gently around a longer curve than try to suddenly stop the safety thing altogether.

Center Yourself

Good team leaders don’t “lead the pack” or “take up the rear”, but run side by side. The best way to gauge what is going on is to be “one” with your members, not above, or below. A lot of network marketing companies sell the business on the pyramid-type matrix. This is not an accurate picture of a high-functioning team. Rather than the familiar triangle with you at the top, picture instead the toy duckies without Mama Duck, each leading their own from the center out. Your team “network” is built both on those who support you and those whom you support, with those roles being interchangeable at any given time. By staying in the center of your team, you can access both those who need you, and those whom you need.